Indus International aims to regroup at user conference

Computerworld - At its annual user conference this week, business applications vendor Indus International Inc. plans to announce software aimed at midsize users and enhancements of e-business and mobile products.

But the Atlanta-based maker of asset management software may also have to soothe users' fears over its continued financial struggles.

For instance, despite a 32% jump in revenue on a year-to-year basis, Indus reported a $6.7 million loss in this year's second quarter - its seventh straight quarterly loss.

The firm nearly broke even on an operating basis in the second quarter, though. And Indus last week said claims filed against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the aftermath of a 1999 revenue restatement have been resolved.

That may give the new management team put in place early last year a chance to finally focus on its plans for the company's flagship PassPort and Enterprise MPAC applications.

Many attendees at the IndusWorld conference in Orlando "will be interested in what the new management team has to offer and what their vision of the future is," predicted Dave Taylor, enterprise resource planning manager at Idaho Power Co. in Boise.

The electric utility uses Indus' PassPort 8.0 software to handle such tasks as design engineering, accounts payable and inventory purchasing. Taylor said Idaho Power is interested in moving to the 9.0 release that became available in July, and he credited Indus for developing "more of a strategic direction" for its products.

For Barry Smith, a maintenance manager at Houston-based offshore drilling company Transocean Sedco Forex Inc., Indus' long-term survival and how it will lead its users to the Web are two top concerns.

Transocean currently runs Enterprise MPAC 8.0 for maintenance procurement and inventory functions. Smith said he wants to see how the Web will affect the software, particularly in the area of security.

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